Composite tape having controlled bonding and release properties



M y 1958 P. N. BRAUN ET AL. 2,835,621

COMPOSITE TAPE HAVING CONTROLLED BONDING AND RELEASE PROPERTIES Filed Oct. 17, 1955 HIGH DENSITY LOW POROS/TY WETSTRENGTH A 2 T0 005 msm FILM 5001530 C LOW DENS/T Y O H EA T S E A L l N G WE T 5 TR EN G TH fJJEIiO iZZL- gggg zgiizz lIVTERLOCK/NG FIBERS AT CROSS OVER ponvrs .003" T0 .008

I INVENTQR. PHIL/P N BRAuN, aml' GERALD l HER/HANSON EZEK/ EL M/OLF THE/R Arm/way United States Patent COMPGSITE TAPE HAVKNG CONTROLLED BOND- ING AND RELEASE PROPERTIES Philip N. Braun, Syracuse, N. Y., and Gerald L Hermanson, Boston, Mass, assignors to Philip N. Braun, lnc., Syracuse, N. Y., a corporation of New York Application October 17, 1955, Serial No. 540,813.

6 Claims. (Cl. 154-535) The present invention relates to a tape to be attached to fabrics and clothing which are to be laundered or dry cleaned by commercial processes.

The present invention comprises such a tape which is bonded by heat sealing to the fabrics or to the clothing such as shirts, towels, and so forth by the heat sealing material such as a thermoplastic film which lies between the tape andthe laundered material when it is applied to the material. The use of such tapes are for marking and other identification purposes, and the tape is usually imprinted on the external surface just prior to its attachment to the laundered material with certain information including an identification number or other indication as to whom the laundry or clothing belongs.

In the identification of laundered and dry cleaned goods, including such articles as clothes and fabric, it is desirable to employ a tape. material fed through a machine which will print the tape to form a tag, sever the tag from the tape, and attach it to the laundry. Such tapes may be pigmented with. color or may be plain white or may be of a plain, uncolored material. Such tape, tickets or tags which are applied to the laundry or to the goods to be cleaned or other such materials, must bond firmly to the article and remain attached to it through the processing, at the same time permitting detachment from the clothes when desired without altering the surface of the cloth or fabric in any way.

It ha been found desirable in such a case to heat seal the tape to the fabric to prevent tearing not only of the tape, but of the fabric itself. For the many combinations of different identification, the tape is preferably pigmented in many colors and then imprinted to form a tag which is applied and heat sealed to the laundry, with the number and letter to designate the laundry group to which the items belong. In such an application, it is necessary to prevent the discharge of the pigment and the printing upon the clothing to which the heat scalable tape is applied, while the tape is applied under heat, and pressure and a suitable time of dwell.

This invention is directed to an improved tape for forming heat sealahle laundry tags of the character above I referred to. It is a companion case with the application of William A. Hermanson and Gerald I. Hermanson, Serial No. 505,982, filed May 4, 1955, now abandoned, entitled Composite Sheets Having Controlled Bonding and Release Properties.

For the purpose of the present invention there is employed an integrated tape material comprising, in part, a surfacing cellulose sheet which may be made up in natural color but is mostly pigmented in various colors which are desired. This sheet provides a top surfacing web on which the imprinted symbols are impressed in ink or by other suitable pigments.

This so called printing sheet must have a high density and wet strength which not only confers strength through the solutions used in laundering and dry cleaning, but which also is a type of wet strength which contributes a sizing effect to fill interfiber voids and thereby reduces strike through of printing inks. and also contributes. to.

the stiffness of the tag or sheet. This sheet, which is the top printing sheet, is preferably of cellulose fibers such. as wood pulp, non-virgin abaca fibers which are mixed,

in the beater with a wet strength resin and rosin, whereby these are ultimately incorporated into the formed, sheet providing a high density wet strength .sheet. While. it is preferable in such a sheet to use a blend of nonvirgin abaca fibers and wood pulp, the sheet may also be made solely of woodpulp. fibers or wholly of nonvirgin abaca fibers. The type ofresin which is most desirable is that which promotes the greatest sizing effect,

and highest wet strength, and conventionally these resins:

may be melamine formaldehyde or. urea formaldehyde or such other similar types of resins.

The web formed on the wire or paper machine should.

have a low porosity showing a value on the Guirley permeometer of nearly zero which machine is usually used as an indicator to measure the cubic footage of theair passing through a square foot of area per minute, under a pressure drop of 0.5 of a column of water.

On one side of this sheet is then flowed a thin thermoplastic film in the range of .00025" to .0015". This thermoplastic film not only aids in sealing the cellulose top. sheet, which is very dense anyway, but also provides.

a seal to the sheet which is at the other. sideof the thermoplastic film. The top sheet or web, together with the thermoplastic film, is also of sufficient. density to pre.

vent the passage of the identification ink pigment which is printed or impressed on the top surfaceof the. sheet. This thermoplastic film which may be polyethylene or. other suitable bonding film, bonds the under surface of thetop web to the top surface of the base web or sheet. The thermoplastic film which may be polyethylene cellulose acetate, vinyl resin or other thermoplastic film, should operate in a melting range of between 220 F, to 300 F.

The base web or sheet to which the top imprinted sheet is bound by the plastic film comprisespreferably 1a cellulosic web made of virginabaca fibers havinglow density but high wet strength. This web or sheet mustv stand up to all laundry solutionsand cleaning solvents.

The sheet may be given a wet strength treatment by incorporating a melamine orurea formaldehyde resin which would be supplied in the beater and mixed with. the, fi-

bers, or the sheet may be tub sized, but theretention of.

the resin on the fibers must be substantially less. than that for the top or printed sheet, because it isessential that heat transfer through this web be very fast. Such fast transfer is only secured by the use. of an open formation of web to promote a substantially higher porosity than the top web.

Due to the difiiculty of controlling the porosity, within fairly narrow limits because of the sizing effect of" the wet strength resin, such as melamine or urea'forrnaldehyde, we prefer to confer wet strength to the web by regenerating the cellulose throughout the formation, thus establishing bond only at the inter-fiber crossings of the web, leaving the inteifiber spaces of the webs themselves substantially open to pass air. Such a web can be held to a porosity of a very high value as read on the Gutley permeometer with a fairly close plus or minus tol erance of about 20%.

A sheet of the type desirable in the present case may be formed by tub-sizing with viscose for the purpose of regenerating cellulose on the fibers, in the places where the fibers cross one another but not along the whole length of the fiber. By controlled tub-sizing this will readily be accomplished.

Employing a web of this type of fibers in the bottom sheet, having a low density and high porosity, the sheet will when sealed under heat and pressure, yield or com- 3 press when applied against the fabric thus assisting in making a close bond between the surface of the material to which the tag is applied and the tag itself.

For direct bonding to the fabric material such as laundered goods, shirts, towels and so forth, the bottom web sheet is also coated with a thermoplastic film which readily spreads and joins the tape to the materials to which the tape is to be applied. The thermoplastic film thus applied on the outside of the bottom cellulose sheet, adheres through the spreading action to the laundered material and thereby establishes a full bond of the tape to the laundered surface.

A further feature of this type of adhesion is that it promotes a ready stripping off of the tag from the fabric when it is desired to remove the tag.

The under surface of the bottom cellulose sheet, as has been stated, is covered with a thermoplastic film which may be of the order of .0004" to .003 in thickness. The thermoplastic film is of the stame type as the thermoplastic film between the top printing sheet and the bottom cellulose sheet and may be of the same properties, either polyethylene, cellulose acetate, vinyl or any other plastic film having a melting point between 220 F. to 300 F. Its function is to provide sufficient film which, when heated, will permit union between the laundered clothing or fabrics and the tag itself.

In order to bring out the invention more clearly, it will be described in connection with the figure showing a section through the tag or material which is used to provide a marking tag for laundry and other purposes.

The top sheet in the figure, labelled A, is the so-called printing sheet, which as has been stated is made of a cellulose fiber sheet of high density, low porosity, with a high wet strength obtained by impregnating the sheet quite fully with resin and resin material. The top sheet for this purpose is a comparatively but somewhat smooth sheet and will prevent strike-through of the printing ink imprinted upon it. Underneath the top sheet is a thermoplastic film B which may be .00025 to .0015 in thickness and which sheet serves mainly for the purpose to join the top sheet with the sheet C beneath it. This sheet C is preferably made of virgin abaca fibers, also provided with a high wet strength, but of a different type from the wet strength in the top sheet. The wet strength in the sheet C is obtained by regenerating viscose on the fibers to provide bindings at the junctions of the crossing fibers, but not to cover the fibers fully, as is the case of the top sheet which is of high density. The sheet C therefore is of a low density and high porosity, and is pliable and yielding, and will absorb part of the thermoplastic film B when heat is applied through the top printed sheet. The lower film D of the tag or section shown inthe figure is also a thermoplastic film, such as polyethylene, and serves to make a union with the fabric or cloth to which the tag or strip is applied. This lower thermoplastic filmwill be squashed or spread out somewhat into the sheet C, and will embed itself in the materail of the laundered element to which it is attached 4 so as to make a very successful and uniform bond which can be removed only by actually pulling the strip away from the material.

The bond however, is not such as to injure or harm the laundry material since it comes off whole and adheres to the tag itself.

Having now described our invention, we claim:

1. A laminated tape material comprising a cellulosic web of long fibers having wet strength obtained by regenerated viscose inter-locking only the inter-fiber crossings of the web forming a sheet of low density and high porosity bonded on one surface by a thermoplastic film to a cellulosic web of high density and low porosity and having wet strength formed by incorporating melamine formaldehye resins and on the other surface to a thermoplastic film for bonding purposes to cloth and other fabrics.

2-. A tape as set forth in claim 1 in which the firstmentioned thermoplastic film is not in excess of .0015 in thickness and the second-mentioned thermoplastic film is not in excess of .003" in thickness.

3. A tape material as in claim 1 in which the firstmentioned cellulosic web is formed of virgin abaca fibers and the second-mentioned cellulosic web of non-virgin abaca fibers.

4. A laminated tape material comprising a cellulosic web formed with virgin abaca fibers regenerated with viscose for interlocking the crossover points of the fibers but leaving the spaces about the fibers substantially open providing a low density high porosity web having wet strength, said web being bonded on one surface by a thermoplastic film to a cellulosic web of high density and low porosity and having wet strength obtained with added resins and sizing agents and on the other surface to a thermoplastic film for bonding purposes to cloth and other fabrics.

5. A tape as set forth in claim 4 in which the firstmentioned thermoplastic film is not in excess of .0015 in thickness and the second-mentioned thermoplastic film is not in excess of .003 in thickness.

6. A laminated tape material comprising a cellulosic web of long fibers having wet strength obtained by regenerated viscose interlocking only the inter-fiber crossings of the web forming a sheet of low density and high porosity bonded on one surface by a thermoplastic film to a cellulosic web of high density and low porosity and having wet strength formed by incorporating urea formaldehyde resins and on the other surface to a thermoplast ic film for bonding purposes to cloth and other fabrics.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,096,750 Laurence Oct. 26, 1937 2,219,700 Perrin et al. Oct. 29, 1940 2,649,859 Hermanson et al. Aug. 25, 1953 2,652,351 Gerhardt Sept. 15, 1953 2,686,744 Cornwell Aug. 17, 1954 

1. A LAMINATED TAPE MATERIAL COMPRISING A CELLULOSIC WEB OF LONG FIBERS HAVING WET STRENGTH OBTAINED BY REGENERATED VISCOSE INTERLOCKING ONLY THE INTER-FIBER CROSSINGS OF THE WEB FORMING A SHEET OF LOW DENSITY AND HIGH POROSITY BONDED ON ONE SURFACE BY A THERMOPLASTIC FILM TO A CELLULOSIC WEB OF HIGH DENSITY AND LOW POROSITY AND HAVING WET STRENGTH FORMED BY INCORPORATING MELAMINE FORMALDEHYDE RESINS AND ON THE OTHER SURFACE TO A THERMOPLASTIC FILM FOR BONDING PURPOSES TO CLOTH AND OTHER FABRICS. 